REPORT ON THE DELIMITATION OF CONSTITIENCIES-2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Electoral Commission of Zambia is established under Article 229 of the
Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Act No.2 of 2016 and whose mandate among others is to conduct delimitation of electoral boundaries.
Article 58 further states that the Electoral Commission shall, at intervals of not more than ten years, review the names and boundaries of constituencies and wards.
In line with the Commission’s mandate, the Commission conducted the delimitation exercise from 8th July 2019 to 10th December 2019.
The exercise was carried out in four phases as follows:
• The first phase included consultations with stakeholders;
• The second phase included the District Sittings held in all the 116 districts
where stakeholders made proposals on the creation of new
constituencies, wards and polling districts;
• The third phase was the Provincial Sittings where districts submissions (oral
and written) were received by the Commission on the creation of new
constituencies, wards and polling districts; and
• The last phase was the Commission Consolidation Sitting, where the
Commission considered all the 116 district submissions and made recommendations on the number of constituencies, wards and polling districts to be increased.
The Commission has recommended an increase in the number of constituencies from 156 to 250.
The justification for the increase is high
population density, population increase, vastness of an area, new settlement
patterns, means of communication and geographical terrain to ensure adequate representation between urban and sparsely populated areas.
The recommended number of constituencies per province is summarized in Table 1 below
